


heavy is the head that wears the snapback

by cakecakecake



Series: teeter dance [5]
Category: Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Angst and Feels, Family Feels, Gen, Growing Up, Hurt/Comfort, Self-Discovery, Sibling Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:53:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25287130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cakecakecake/pseuds/cakecakecake
Summary: if she feels like the worst best friend, then he must be the worst brother.
Series: teeter dance [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1808371
Comments: 8
Kudos: 43





	heavy is the head that wears the snapback

The faint _click-clack_ of designer heels echoes down the empty corridor just as Leon’s wrapping up his last conference call of the day. He cracks his fingers, glancing aside at the calendar, skimming over the circles and crosses over the dates. He sighs. There’s a jostle and then a creak. He knows it’s her before the door even opens. (Overdue, he thinks.)

“I want to revoke my title.” 

She says it before even shutting the door behind her. Her voice carries across the room, monotonous and robotic. The new Chairman doesn’t look up.

“It was a fluke that I won,” she continues, with all the mechanics of a weather reporter, arms rigid at her side. She’s articulate and projecting, but her lips are hardly moving. “I shouldn’t have made it this far. It should be Hop, not me.” 

He snorts, quietly. It’s a small enough noise that it goes unnoticed, and she’s still standing far enough away that she can’t see the quirk at the corner of his mouth. There’s another beat of silence before she finally moves in closer. The door clicks shut. She sounds impatient, now.

“Are you even listening to me?” 

He looks at her, finally, still in her party dress. It’s a satin, ruched little thing, red and flashy. Too short and tight for a girl her age to be wearing, but that’s what they do to Champions. They doll you up in big-kid clothes and big-kid shoes and big-kid jewelry without a hand to hold onto. They’ve brushed the big-girl makeup on her, too; the shining lip gloss and sharp wings lining the corners of her eyes. It bothers him, but her words bother him even more. 

“Leon, _please_ hear me out,” she begs him, pitchy and whimpering. At least they can’t make-up her voice, he thinks. Her bottom lip quivers like she’s trying with all her might not to cry. It feels strange, seeing her like this, like peering behind a curtain. Something he’s not meant to see. He wonders if his brother has ever seen her cry. She sniffles. “I shouldn’t be Champion.” 

“You’re wrong,” he says flatly, near cutting her off. Her eyes go wide, brows winding tight together. She stomps toward the desk and he rises from his chair, sighing.

“What?!”

“I said: you’re wrong,” he repeats himself. He doesn’t even attempt to stifle his chortles, losing the will to hide his stretching smile. He comes around to lean against the lectern, peering down at her. 

She looks so small even in heels. He can’t believe how long it’s been since he’d been that small himself.

“I know what you said,” she grits her teeth, frustrated. “But what makes you say that?” 

He doesn’t miss a beat. He looks hard into her glassy eyes. “Because when I won the title, I said the same thing to Rose.” 

Stark surprise crosses her face as the lines around her mouth relax, her shoulders sagging. She blinks her heavy lashes, incredulous. Her voice drops in pitch. “Did you?”

“Yes,” he says. He swallows, smiling fondly down at her as he starts to explain. “I was thirteen, like you. Two weeks after the battle, I marched into this very office, and I demanded he annul my title. I told him I never wanted to win. It should have been Raihan.”

“What did he tell you?”

“The same thing I’m telling you.”

Gloria shakes her head, hands gesturing more wildly than he’d ever noticed. She speaks so passionately, invigorated, a striking difference to the reserved, shy girl he’d been introduced to months ago. 

“It’s different, Leon. I don’t want this,” she argues with little conviction in her wavering speech. “I didn’t -- I didn’t want to win. I didn’t even think I _could_.”

“But you did,” he says, uselessly, obviously. Tears bloom in the corners of her eyes as she bites at her inner cheek. “You won.”

“I didn’t deserve it.” 

She’s wrong about that too, but his knee-jerk response is a more melancholy nugget of hard-earned grown-up wisdom. “We don’t always get what we deserve, Peanut.” 

“It was for Hop,” she says, breathy and fighting to keep her voice even. “I wouldn’t have even joined the Challenge if it weren’t for him. I thought it would make him happy, but it just…”

“It did,” he tries, watching her eyes squeeze shut. The tears drip streaks of dark makeup down the curves of her cheeks and Leon’s heart clenches, thinking soberly of the first time he’d seen Sonia cry like that. Smearing makeup and all. His brows wind together. “It did make him happy. Gloria…”

She breathes in sharply, dabbing her fingers under her eyes as he talks to her. (There’s no saving the eyeliner, but it’s cute that she tries.) 

“You’re a lot like me,” he says, humbly as he can. “At least, in the way of doing things because they make people happy. But Hop, he’s -- thankfully -- nothing like Raihan.”

Gloria hiccups out a laugh, trying to cover it with a cough into the crook of her elbow, looking aside bashfully. Leon smiles fondly at her. 

“It’s always been his greatest ambition to become Galar’s Champion,” he explains. “Something he’s carried with him all his life -- Hop is different. He wanted to be Champion because he wanted to be closer to me.”

He smiles helplessly, weakly back at her, watching the guilt leave her face as it stings something deep within him instead. He’d known it all along, even before the Challenge began, but saying it aloud makes it seem worse. Reminds him of how awful of an older brother he’s been. It shouldn’t have taken all that to do so. It seems Gloria is making sense of it as she moves in even closer, craning her neck to look up at him fully. 

“Would it have?” she asks with such an honest curiosity that even if he planned on sparing her the truth, she would have swayed him otherwise. She’s intuitive and clever in ways he wishes he had been. Emotionally mature and attuned for such a sheltered kid. His smile falters.

“No,” is his soft reply. “And it’s not on him that we aren’t as close as we could be. He just doesn’t understand that yet.”

Her brow furrows. The words seem to touch her from the way her eyes well up again. She holds back another sniffle and Leon feels the sting of tears coming on, too. 

“I love my brother, just the way he is,” he tells her, candidly and warmly. “A little clumsy, a little loud -- and _passionate_ , for knowledge, for Pokemon, for emotional connections -- and I think, during the Challenge, he lost sight of that passion. He forgot the very thing that makes him so special in the first place. But you…”

He reaches to clutch her bare shoulder. The touch makes her face crumble, shoulders shuddering with a fight to keep from crying harder. Leon swallows a chortle, smiling sweetly at her. So proud of her. 

“By winning this title, you made him remember. You helped my brother discover who he really is, and what he really wants out of this funny little life we live. And you discovered yourself too, didn’t you?” 

Gloria blinks away tears, eyes falling to the floor. “I…”

“I see that look in your eyes when you battle,” he tells her. “You can’t mistake it. You can’t tell me you got this far on a fluke when I see your face on the field.”

Her breathing stutters. Another big hand meets her other shoulder and he’s almost impressed that she’s still fighting back the sobs. She doesn’t have to -- it’s okay to break down, especially when you’re just a kid -- Gods, just a kid, and her empathy is already like this. She’s already so aware of disappointment and crushed hopes and responsibility and heartache. He may not be _her_ big brother, but he hopes the comfort of his touch reaches her despite. 

“Maybe you _didn’t_ want it at first,” he tries to validate her while still proving he’s right. “Maybe you did just do it for Hop in the beginning. But I think you found yourself too, Gloria. You just didn’t _want_ to want it.” 

It’s then that the waterworks turn on full blast. Gloria regresses into carefully controlled sobs, even in her breakdown still trying to compartmentalize the wonderfully messy mix of guilt and relief and exhaustion and shame. She buries her face in her hands and Leon feels a great tug at his heartstrings.

“Come here, Peanut,” he chokes out, pulling her into a protective embrace. She falls apart in his arms, snaking her own around his waist. He can feel the hot tears dampen his dress shirt. Drops of his own fall around the sleek bun of her hair as he realizes -- he didn’t even hold Hop like this after he’d lost in the semi-finals. 

Gods. He’s the worst brother. 

Once she's calmed down, Leon calls her an air-taxi to bring her home. She doesn't need to make a reappearance at the party, but he should. Hopefully, Hop hasn't left on his own. 

Surely enough, his brother is still lingering close to the open bar, talking animatedly with a few kids his age. They have great glimmers in their eyes and smiles across their faces and Hop looks to be in his element, Leon faintly overhearing him say something in regards to Wooloo breeding. Leon's eyes sting again. He can't believe it's taken him this long to realize it -- he knows so little about his little brother. 

He does nothing to make his presence known, but Hop notices him anyway like a sixth sense. His face lights up when they meet eyes and a pang of guilt stabs at his gut. He's always so happy to see him, completely oblivious. He's not sure the lack of realization on his part makes him feel better or worse. 

"Lee! There you are! I thought you'd gone home al -- eh?"

In a swift, swooping motion, Leon swings his brother up into his arms, lifting him so high his lanky legs dangle from a foot in the air. The nearby kids coo and giggle and make little noises of adoration, but he hardly hears them over the awkward laugh his brother chokes out.

"Lee? You're gonna squeeze out the punch I just drank!" 

"I love you, Hop," he mutters fondly, eyes screwed shut, not quite loud enough for anyone else to hear. If his little audience is still participating, he doesn't mind. His duty to be an embarrassing older sibling is past due. 

Hop settles in his embrace, holding on tighter like he's suddenly scared to let go, like the last thing he wants is to be put back on his feet. Leon thinks he hears him sniffling. 

"I'm so proud of you," Leon whispers. Hop makes a tiny, coughing noise he hasn't heard since he was a toddler. 

"I love you too, Lee," he squeaks, absolutely delighted, and Leon's heart melts for it. 

He's loath to put him down, but if he wants to look him in the face, he should. Hop's a little flushed, watery-eyed and embarrassed. He mutters something of an apology to the kids he'd been talking to and turns back to him.

"I know it's still early, but d'you want to come home with me?" Leon asks him, hopefully. Hop's face splits into a grin.

"Yeah," he nods, laughing giddily. "Let's go home!"


End file.
